


Painting Pandemonium

by Actual_Writing_Trashcan



Series: Colossus Hyperfixation Collection [78]
Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Bob Ross - Freeform, Domestic Fluff, Happy Little Trees, Multi, Painting, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but they will be canon for the series eventually, fluff fluff fluff, good feels only, heavy found family tropes here, if you know where to look you'll see it, nothing but fluff, the kitty/illyana thing is more hinted at in this than overt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actual_Writing_Trashcan/pseuds/Actual_Writing_Trashcan
Summary: You and Piotr host a Bob Ross painting party for your friends and family.(Set after "Future: Realized.")[All warnings in the tags, but basically no warnings for this one.]
Relationships: Alexandra Rasputin/Nikolai Rasputin, Ellie Phimister/Yukio (Deadpool Movies), Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin, Nathan Summers/Wade Wilson, Piotr Rasputin/Reader
Series: Colossus Hyperfixation Collection [78]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1079544
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Painting Pandemonium

**Author's Note:**

> I know this week should've been chapter two of "Out With the Old, In With the New," but I had a bad few days and needed to do fluff instead. Chapter Two of last week's fic will be up next week, barring any other mishaps.

It begins one sunny, early Spring day, when you’re watching your husband work on his latest painting (one of two hands holding each other, each smeared with the colors of the lesbian, gay, and asexual pride flags) in his art studio.

“Have you ever heard of Bob Ross?”

“ _Da_.” Piotr dabs some more magenta paint on the wrist of the left hand, then looks over at you and smiles. “I watched tutorials to learn English. Why ask?”

“Eh, just wondering,” you say, curling up in the cushy arm chair Piotr keeps in his studio –he says it’s so he has somewhere comfortable to sit when he’s thinking, but it’s as much for you as it is for him. “Wasn’t sure if he’d made it over into Russia’s cultural bubble or not.”

“Ah, that, not so much.” He takes a step back from his easel, eyeing the canvas with no small amount of scrutiny, undoubtedly weighing out whether the distributions of the colors on the two hands–the rainbow amalgam for the gay pride flag where the fingers interlock, and the lesbian and asexual pride flag colors on the separate, untouching parts of the hands and wrists—are up to his incredibly high standards. “ _Matushka_ found some for me to watch on tape when I started painting, but I earnest watched when I came to America.” He quirks his mouth to the side, then looks at you and jerks his head at the canvas. “ _Mysli_?”

“Needs more yellow and green,” you declare after a moment of studying the painting. “Otherwise it’s a lot of warm tones and purple-y tones, and that just makes my eyes start glazing without something to liven it up.”

Piotr nods with a grunt of agreement, then adds more yellow and green paint to his palette.

* * *

It continues a few weeks later, when the two of you are buying groceries.

“Hey, have you heard about those ‘Bob Ross painting parties?’” you blurt when you two pass the arts and crafts section of the store. When Piotr gives you a blank look, you elaborate. “You know, a bunch of people get together with a bunch of paint and canvases and shit and follow a Bob Ross tutorial while hanging out.”

Piotr blinks rapidly as he processes the concept, then smiles slowly and shakes his head. “I take it you have reason for bringing this up.”

“I mean…” You let your voice trail off, then look up at your husband with your patented ‘I’m-so-cute-you-can’t-resist-me-please-make-me-pancakes’ eyes. “We have a house. We have access to YouTube and Netflix –which are where the tutorials are. We have friends we like to hang out with.”

Piotr chuckles, then grins down at you. “Would you like to host ‘painting party,’ _myshka_?”

“Well, since you brought it up!” you chirp brightly, which only makes your husband laugh harder. “But yeah, I think it’d be fun! And we got paint right here!”

Piotr shakes his head –still smiling—as you gesture at the Crayola-stocked arts and crafts section, then ushers you away from the aisle. “We can host party, _lyublyu_ –but we can get better paint than that.”

* * *

It takes a few weeks of planning, gathering supplies, checking schedules, and inviting people –but finally, towards the end of April, it all comes together.

The kitchen counter is laden with snacks –chips, fruits and veggies, cookies, little sandwiches, and the like. The coffee table in front of the couch has canvases, tubes of paint, and jars of paintbrushes loaded on it. The TV that hangs over the fireplace is on and set up to play one of Bob Ross’s tutorials, once everyone’s ready.

Nearly everyone is already here. Kitty, Russell, Illyana, Ellie, and Yukio are milling around the kitchen, jabbering while they down various snacks. Mikhail and Neena are sitting on the couch, looking at something on Neena’s phone. Piotr and his mother, Alexandra, are talking about one of Piotr’s latest paintings, while Nikolai stands nearby quietly, only throwing in the occasional comment.

You grin when the doorbell rings multiple times in a row, then skip over to the front door and open it with a sunny grin. “Hey!”

Wade greets you with an enthusiastic bear hug. “Howdy yourself, pardner! Hope you saved some yellow paints for me; I’ve always found those ones to be the best tasting.”

You and Nate exchange a fondly annoyed eyeroll over Wade’s antics, in addition to a hug. “Glad you could make it, Dad.”

“Like we wouldn’t come.” He pats your shoulder, lips quirking into an amused grin. “Like he’d—” he nods at Wade “—let me skip out. He’s been talking about it nonstop for the past two weeks.”

* * *

It takes no small amount of shuffling to get everyone situated so they can all see the screen. Kitty, Illyana, Russell, Ellie, and Yukio all cram onto the couch together (which Piotr drapes with towels beforehand), Neena, Nathan, Alex, and Nikolai take station behind the couch with barstools and easels, you and Piotr set up on either side of the couch, and Mikhail and Wade…

Well…

“This is fucking overkill,” Wade gripes as Piotr ushers him and his brother to an area he’d prepped by taping newspapers to the floors and walls before hanging plastic shower curtains over the walls and putting down one of his thick drop canvases over the newspapered floor.

“Language, Wade,” Piotr says. “And it is just small precaution.”

“ _Nebol'shaya predostorozhnost', moya zadnitsa_ ,” Mikhail grumbles.

“You two are… most chaotic,” Piotr says, attempting to be diplomatic. “This will minimize clean up, at end.”

“Sounds like someone wants paint in his shoes,” Wade stage-whispers to Mikhail.

“Agreed,” Mikhail faux whispers back with a nod. “We wait until tutorial puts him to sleep, and then we put purple paint in shoes.”

“I was thinking red, but purple works, too.”

You laugh along with everyone else, then blow your husband a kiss when he sighs heavily and shakes his head. “Alright, are we all ready?”

* * *

“Fu –freaking… _why does he switch colors so much_!”

“Relax, baby.” Yukio smiles at her frustrated girlfriend, then kisses her shoulder. “It’s just for fun.”

“Fun is playing Mariokart… or studying string theory,” Ellie growls through gritted teeth as she jabs at her canvas with a paintbrush. “Not… dab some stuff here and some other stuff there and making little blobs look like things.”

“Come on, Negasonic the Hedgehog!” Wade coos teasingly from where he’s swiping at his own canvas. “Think ‘happy little clouds’ and ‘happy little trees!’”

“Douchepool, I will jam this paint brush up your—”

“Language, NTW,” Piotr says warningly –though not without a good dose of fondness. “And, Wade, no harassment, please.”

“Harassment? Pretty sure your little protegee there was just threatening to harass my—”

“ _Wade_.”

Kitty just laughs as she works on her own ‘mountain sunrise’ scene. “Relax, Ellie. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.”

“Incorrect,” Illyana retorts, brow deeply furrowed as she works on her own painting. “There is tutorial. That is right way.”

“Tutorial is only reference, to show distribution of colors and shades,” Piotr corrects his younger sister as he leans over to look at his mentee’s canvas. “You are loading brush too heavy, Ellie. Start with less, then add more if needed.”

“I think I am less ‘sunrise’ and more ‘disco rave,’” Nikolai chuckles as he peers down at his own canvas.

Neena lets out a ‘whoa’ when she looks over at Nick’s canvas, then laughs lightly. “It’s long distance art. Meant to be seen from far away.”

Nick laughs along with her. “At last, I have found niche.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth turns up in a smile, and she reaches out and pats her husband’s thigh with her free hand.

* * *

Once you’re all done –which takes a lot of pausing and rewinding the tutorial video—you all set your respective canvases on the dining room table, then admire each other’s works.

Piotr’s, unsurprisingly, is the best. He’s the most experienced artist out of all of you, and very familiar with both the materials and Bob Ross’s work.

You wrap your arms around your husband’s waist and kiss his side. “Very nice work, honey.”

He wraps a strong, muscular arm around you and kisses the top of your head. “ _Spasibo_ , _myshka_.”

Alexandra’s is also a “top contender” (even though it’s not a contest, which means there really aren’t contenders, but whatever). It’s not as technically proficient as her son’s –none of yours are—but in balance, composition, and contrast, it’s one of the strongest.

The painter herself, though, regards her work with neutral indifference while everyone else ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ over it. “It’s alright. Average.”

You watch as Nikolai wraps his arms around his wife’s shoulders, murmuring something in her ear that you can’t make out –it’s likely in Russian, anyway, so it doesn’t make much of a difference—before kissing her temple.

Alex’s hand trembles as she places it on her husband’s arm. Just a little.

Before you can make anything of it, Kitty busts out laughing.

“That is amazing!” she guffaws as she studies Wade’s painting –which looks less like a ‘sunrise’ and more like…

Well, it’s somewhere between a ‘LSD trip realized’ and ‘inside of a rainbow.’

(Granted, they might just be the same thing.)

“Very Picasso,” Kitty adds, grinning and shaking her head.

Wade preens theatrically. “I always felt a calling the abstract.”

She moves to Nikolai’s next. “I actually really like this. I think the intensity of the sunrise colors really sets off the greens in the trees.”

Nikolai grins when Illyana translates for him, then does a little bow to Kitty. “ _Spasibo_ , _tigrionok_.”

You can’t help but smile as you watch everyone –the people you love so much—laugh and talk to each other and admire each other’s paintings. _This is home_.

* * *

“You seem happy.”

You look up from admiring everyone’s paintings –night has long since fallen, and everyone’s headed back to their own places, but you and Piotr had offered to hold onto the paintings for a few days so they could dry. “Huh?”

“You are happy, _lyublyu_.” Piotr smiles softly as he watches you. “Glowing.”

You smile bashfully as you look up at him. “I mean… I am happy. We’re making a home.” Tears well up in your eyes, and you smile broader even as grief –well-papered over, but there all the same—rises in your chest. “And it’s so different from the one I grew up in. It’s warm and loving and friendly… and that makes me happy.”

Piotr smiles, melancholy tears shining in his eyes, then draws you into his arms and kisses the top of your head.

Yeah. This is home.

**Author's Note:**

> Also I'm seriously contemplating doing a mini-arc dedicated to Alexandra. She has an entire developed backstory for this series, and I love her so much, and I really want to feature her more. Let me know in the comments if you'd be interested in an Alexandra-focused mini-arc or some Alexandra-centric fics.
> 
> -The Author


End file.
